


Trick or Treat

by Antosha



Series: Birthday Chronicles [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Post-Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:06:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24074161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antosha/pseuds/Antosha
Summary: Sometimes your life plays tricks on you--and whether it's a treat or not is all in the eye of the bloody beholder. (Pansy/Luna. Written pre-DH.)
Relationships: Luna Lovegood/Pansy Parkinson
Series: Birthday Chronicles [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1736818
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	Trick or Treat

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of the femmeslash/femgen exchange hp_lovebirds for jazzyjello.
> 
> It's somewhat angsty, somewhat plot-wanky femslash that I realized is part of the same ficverse as Uncorked.
> 
> Thanks to aberforths_rug for beta assistance throughout.

The smell of ink, leather and paper calmed Pansy these days, even as it depressed the living hell out of her.  
  
Banishing the last of the overstock to the back room, she surveyed the Summoning section, and deemed it acceptable. She stowed her wand in her apron and continued her end-of-the-month inventory, moving to the section whose timid sign read _Amatorial Charms and Potions_.  
  
Assistant Manager of Flourish and Blotts. _Assistant_ BLOODY Manager of Flourish and Blotts. Thirty years old. Thirty- _one_. Unmarried. School chums all dead or too embarrassed to be seen with her. No one matey now; no one to talk to at all except Madam Flourish and the two pimply assistants that Pansy worked over. Income enough to live on but no room for excess. Flat in Muggle Bloody London over a pizza shop not far from The Leaky Cauldron. Robes fading. Stockings turned and darned. Battered, tired, skinny now—no longer _slender_ but angled and lined and dry—no prospects in any direction.  
  
If her parents hadn't been killed following the bloody Malfoys in their idiot crusade—if they'd lived to see Pansy as she had become, they'd have murdered her, and then each other. _That_ argument would have been amusing at least.  
  
_Happy Bloody Birthday, Pansy.  
  
_Mind, Halloween had always made her birthday miserable.  
  
_Trick or Bloody Treat.  
  
_Always something. Mummy tossing a pissed Daddy out the front door and telling Trudy, their elf, not to let him back in until he was sober. Trolls. Petrified cats. Harry Potter playing silly buggers with the Goblet of Fire. Her parents' deaths. Somehow her birthday had always been horrid. And she hadn't even bothered to celebrate the last four years. No one knew or cared that it was her birthday. She could go home and sulk. Sulking was bitter, cheap pleasure, and that was how Pansy liked it.  
  
She scanned the shelf before her, casting an alphabetization charm—not perfect but it got the books into order so that she could look for duplicates or any obvious gaps.  
  
At least it was quiet work for nine months out of the year. No one bothering her. Almost made the school rush and the holiday season bearable.  
  
Pansy plucked a purple-bound volume from the air as it floated past: _Delightful Drafts and Sensual Swallows: A Potion-Master's Guide to Eros_ by Agape Jones. _  
  
_In spite of herself, snorting at the silliness of it, Pansy flipped the book open. Scanning the table of contents, she saw some old friends: Sensualis Salve—that had been a favorite for a while, back when Pansy had thought she was merely between boyfriends and was looking for extra thrills; Daydream Draft, a poor substitute for the Weasleys' charms that she'd had to resort to a number of times when she couldn't afford the Weasleys' prices or couldn't stand the idea of walking into their horrid shop and actually running into a Weasley, or worse, Potter; and of course, at the bottom, Amortentia.  
  
Amortentia. Pansy had an immediate, visceral memory of the smells that she had detected in that swirling, golden steam—an incongruous combination of freesia, fresh linen… And a scent she hadn't been able to identify. Not Draco, though she'd checked. The scent was so clear in her memory, as if she could smell it even now, and yet Pansy couldn't quite—  
  
"Jones's recipe isn't the most efficacious for that potion," an airy voice said, causing Pansy to jump. "He is always a bit inexact when it comes to instructions for stirring."  
  
Pansy turned, clutching the book to her chest even though she knew the Loony had already seen her reading it. "Madam Lovegood. You startled me."  
  
Luna Lovegood's voluminous Unspeakable's robes were dusty and ill-fitted, absolutely obscuring what Pansy was sure was still her loose, scarecrow-like figure, but the blue of the velvet was deep enough to make her eyes look less pallid than Pansy remembered. The peculiar woman simply smiled and stared at Pansy's ear.  
  
"Well, then, what can I do for you, madam? Is there a particular—"  
  
"Happy Birthday, Penthesilea," Lovegood said, and startled Pansy once again by leaning forward and kissing her on the cheek.  
  
No one had kissed her in four years—had _touched_ her in nearly as long. No one knew it was her birthday. And _no one_ knew that her… "How on _earth_ did you know my name?" Pansy's head was swirling, which annoyed her, since she had no idea why a close fly-by by Comet Loony should affect her in any way.  
  
"I was helping Professor Flitwick organizing the rolls for his classes one year, and I happened to come across yours. I thought it was quite lovely. She was an Amazonian queen, you know." Those globular, misty eyes looking once again at Pansy's right earlobe, Luna smiled. "And I knew it was your birthday because I remember one of your friends singing _Happy Birthday_ to you the night that Sirius Black broke into the school. That was a rather easy night to remember."  
  
Daphne, giggly from the firewhisky with which Greg Goyle had spiked the pumpkin juice, singing loudly as they shuffled their way back up to the Great Hall even as the rest of the Slytherins shuddered along as silently as they could—all except Draco, who whispered importantly that Black was coming for _his_ help. Git.  
  
Potter. It was _always_ about Potter.  
  
Pansy stepped back into her Assistant Manager persona. "Well, thank you, Madam Lovegood. Now, what can I—"  
  
"Luna," said Luna. "Please, 'Madam Lovegood' sounds altogether too respectful."  
  
"I… Fine. _Luna_. What can I help you find? Are you perhaps researching Amatorial Charms?" _Only chance_ you'll _ever have of catching yourself…_ But Pansy didn't want to continue along that line of thought, however gratifying it might have been; it could just as easily apply to Pansy herself, and it was too early in the day for bitterness. That would go with afters.  
  
"Oh, no," Luna murmured, eyes scanning the shelves with far more acuity than Pansy would have expected. "I already own most of these—for work, you know. Though I'm not supposed to say."  
  
"Going to Obliviate me?"  
  
Luna's eyes suddenly took on a sharpness that alarmed Pansy. "I might have to." Then the vague smile softened her face again. "But I'd hate to have do that on your birthday."  
  
"No. Wouldn't want that." Several things occurred to Penthesilea Parkinson at once: that Lovegood was actually more than a bit frightening—not as in _mad-as-a-May-Niffler_ frightening, but as in _could-kill-a-person_ frightening; that she had been one of Potter's kiddy Aurors; and that she had been present on the night when Pansy's parents died.  
  
"No," Luna said with enormous gravity. She plucked the book from Pansy's hands. "Amortentia. Such a lovely potion. I smelled so many different scents when I brewed it for Professor Slughorn. I've never been able to identify them all."  
  
"I…" Pansy tried to fight the words back but failed. "Neither have I."  
  
"Isn't it lovely?" Luna said with a lopsided smile. "Mystery truly does give one a reason to get up in the morning, doesn't it?"  
  
"I suppose." How had they died? Who had killed them? Their bodies had been returned to her unmarked, looks of shock on their faces. "Lovegood…"  
  
"Luna, please."  
  
"Luna. I…" The circle of secrecy around what had happened that night was complete. Everyone knew that Potter and his little friends—Granger, the Weasleys, Longbottom, of all people, and Lovegood of course—along with the oh-so-famous Order of the Phoenix had taken Voldemort by surprise at Malfoy Manor. That Potter, Savior of the Wizarding Bloody World, had vanquished the Dark Lord and allowed sunshine and hope to smile upon the land, ladidah. But no one knew how Voldemort had died or—more of interest to Pansy—who had killed all of his supporters. And none of the bloody Soldiers for the Light would ever bloody talk. Twelve years ago today. And here was Luna Bloody Lovegood.  
  
"What are you doing for your birthday, Penthesilea?" Lovegood asked, apparently bemused by Pansy's intent distraction.  
  
"Erm, nothing."  
  
"Surely you must have some plans, someone you want to celebrate with."  
  
"No."  
  
"Oh." Luna looked quite downcast—of course, it was difficult to tell with her, since her face was so slack that it didn't seem capable of holding an expression. "We must remedy that."  
  
"We…?" Pansy wasn't certain what remedy Luna Lovegood might have in mind, but she was quite sure it wasn't in line with Pansy's own plans of mourning the ruin of her own life in solitude.  
  
"You must join me for dinner. I can help you celebrate your birthday properly." True excitement seemed to be playing across Luna's face, catching Pansy off guard.  
  
"Well, I…" Luna would know. Pansy could make her tell. "Erm. All right."  
  
Luna looked almost as shocked as Pansy felt. It wasn't a look Pansy could ever remember seeing on the odd blonde's face before.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Pansy finished closing up for the day, the question of just what she was doing racing through her head like a Kneazle after a mouse. Why would she _ever_ willingly spend time with Loony Lovegood? And on her birthday, for Merlin's sake!  
  
The first answer that kept popping into her head was of course that this was simply an opportunity to pump Lovegood for information about Pansy's mother and father's deaths. The second answer—the one at which she did not choose to examine closely—was that Penthesilea Parkinson was desperately, crushingly lonely.  
  
Lovegood never left the store, which annoyed Pansy— _Did she think I was going to slink off?_ It also allowed her to get used to the idea of spending time with the daft bint, somewhat. She seemed to be wandering the empty store at random, reading book spines and plucking volumes on Lethifold husbandry and ancient Toltec potions from the shelves, flipping through the pages for a few seconds and then returning them. Teeth grinding, Pansy hoped she was returning them to the right shelves. Right side up. Right side _out_.  
  
At 7:00 on the dot, Pansy spelled the sign on the front door to read _Closed Until Tomorrow_ , and then she checked the till again; there hadn't been a sale since tea time, so there was no need to re-count. It was already set for the next day. She locked the till and levitated the store's rather slim takings for the day into the safe in Madam Flourish's office, ready for the proprietor's trip to Gringotts in the morning.  
  
"Shall we go?" Luna Lovegood burbled as Pansy approached the front again.  
  
"Why not?" grumbled Pansy. She'd almost hoped that the lunatic would remember some meeting of Snark Hunters Anonymous that she was supposed to attend and would disappear. It felt odd to have someone _waiting_ for Pansy and though part of her warmed at the feeling, the rest of her loathed it. _Just going to pump her_ , she thought. _After dinner_. "So, Floo?"  
  
"Oh, no," Luna gasped. "I should think you would know to avoid that! The Etherbeast infestation of the Floo Network has only been getting worse of the past few years!"  
  
"Right."  
  
"Besides," Luna said, her habitual out-of-focus smile returning, "my place is just a short walk from here, and it's a pleasant night."  
  
"Right," said Pansy again, though the idea of strolling down Diagon Alley in Luna Lovegood's company was more than a little mortifying.  
  
Not that anyone would give a tinker's damn who Pansy was seen with. No one gave a tinker's damn about Pansy any more. Then she actually considered what Luna had just said. "Your… _place_?"  
  
Luna glanced owlishly at her. "My flat. My abode. The dwelling that I inhabit."  
  
"Well _of course…_!" Pansy hissed, trying not to call too much attention to herself; a girl dressed up in round glasses with a lightning bolt painted on her forehead was shepherded to the other side of the alley by her wide-eyed mother. "I _know_ what you mean. But I thought… Dinner…?"  
  
"Yes," said Luna Lovegood, smiling. "Happy birthday!"  
  
Pansy could think of nothing to say and so she continued to walk along beside Luna, each not quite within the other's social perimeter.  
  
The holiday decorations gave the street a ghoulish, festive air; a part of Pansy felt some of her childhood wonder at the floating pumpkins and animated skeletons. But on the whole, it all just brought back a slew of dreadful memories.  
  
_Trick or Bloody Treat.  
  
_Luna was humming something that Pansy was sure she didn't care to recognize. They were far enough apart that anyone looking might have taken them for strangers walking on parallel courses. If anyone had been looking.  
  
They passed the storefront that had once housed Fortescue's Ice Cream. It now held the garish, huge display window of Weasleys' Wizard Ware—Defense and Wheezes. As always the display was gaudy and obscene: trolls and hags dancing some ridiculous quadrille, a red-and-gold clad Harry Potter (of course) flying around on that bloody broom, spelling out _VOLDY'S MOLDY!_ and _YOU-KNOW-WHO'S GONE TO YOU-KNOW-WHERE_!  
  
"Harry hates when they use his image that way," sighed Luna.  
  
"Right. If that were true, he'd get them to stop," Pansy said, teeth clenched. "I mean, he's president of the company, isn't he?"  
  
"Yes, but he doesn't interfere in the day-to-day operations. He's more involved in other affairs."  
  
"No doubt," Pansy muttered.  
  
"Ah," said Luna, "here we are."  
  
They had arrived at Ollivander's. Pansy was perplexed. Did the bint need a new wand?  
  
"Good evening, Flaminia," Luna said brightly to a woman locking up the shop: old Mr. Ollivander's niece, "Young" Madam Ollivander, who was seventy if she was a day.  
  
"Happy Halloween, Luna," said the witch just as bloody brightly. Then her eyes slid to Pansy, and all of the light drained from their grey depths. She turned and walked away without another word.  
  
"She wonders if your parents were the ones who killed her uncle, I suppose," Luna murmured.  
  
"I suppose," Pansy said. It was a reaction she was all too used to, and she should have felt a sense of familiar, bitter vindication, but this night had already played such havoc with Pansy's equilibrium that she wasn't quite sure that she wasn't actually _hurt_. "I wouldn't know," she muttered.  
  
"No," said Luna, and her face took on a pensive, furtive looked that, in her, might almost be taken for tension. Then Luna opened the door beside the store entrance and gestured for Pansy to precede her.  
  
_She lives above_ ** _Ollivander's_** **?** Pansy was quite flummoxed; Ollivander's was easily the oldest and most prestigious address in Wizarding Britain; the current building was known to have been inhabited for over two thousand years. There were only two flats above the store, the monthly rent for each of which was some order of ten above Pansy's annual salary. She knew this, of course, because Draco had told her so, had told them all so _ad nauseam_ , since his parents maintained one as their London _pied-à-terre_. _What on_ earth _was Loony Lovegood doing…?  
  
_As they walked up the narrow, warn stone stairs, Pansy considered her bizarre companion anew. Luna Lovegood was a decorated war hero. She was an Unspeakable. She was one of the Golden Bloody Couple's closest friends. What was she playing at, inviting Pansy Parkinson to her flat? A thrill of… _something_ tickled what there was of Pansy's chest. _Merlin. What…?  
  
_When they reached the landing Luna stopped at the door and sighed, "Wait here just a moment." Then she flicked her wand and the door opened, revealing a beautiful, peculiar chamber—beautiful, peculiar, crammed to the gills and absolutely still. Candles in silver sticks burning without flickering. A crow—a raven?—sitting motionless atop an overflowing bookshelf by the gleaming dinner table. Impossible.  
  
Luna smiled again, flicked her wand again, and said, "There." The room sprang to life, the candle flames dancing, the raven hopping from foot to foot and squawking. "Good evening, Huggin," Luna said. "Wish Penthesilea a happy birthday."  
  
" _HAPPY BIRTHDAY!_ " croaked the raven.  
  
"Nevermore," grumbled Pansy, triggering an eruption of laughter from Luna that was so extreme that Pansy was stunned and the raven fluttered out of the room with a croak.  
  
"You're funny," Luna said, tears leaking from her bulbous eyes.  
  
"Right," Pansy said, that queer feeling stirring inside of her again. "I'm a regular laugh riot."  
  
"Come," said Luna, once she'd blown her nose, "let's eat. Dinner is ready."  
  
Nonplussed, Pansy followed her into the room, staring at the odd collections of bric-a-brac that were spilling from every surface. Bones. Books. Something shiny and phallic that Pansy really didn't want to consider. Plants. A terrarium holding several small creatures that looked vaguely like the awful Skrewt things that that oaf Hagrid had sprung upon them, back when things only seemed complicated. The familiar, calming scent of paper, ink and leather. Beautiful furnishings—old oak, mahogany and ebony, silk brocade and hand-woven wool—scarcely visible through the glaciers of rubbish.  
  
When they reached the table, Pansy froze once again. In contrast to the sprawl in the rest of the flat, the long, shining table was elegantly set with china, silver and linen. Fragrant flowers, her favorites, formed a low centerpiece between the two places that were set at either end of the table. The scent of sorrel floated up from a steaming bowl of soup, overpowering even the gorgeous flowers, and Pansy was painfully reminded that subsisting on a diet of conjured food was a sure way to death, either by starvation or by boredom. "Y-you… have a house elf?" It took enormous discipline not to throw herself into the chair and begin eating.  
  
Luna's eyes grew even wider than normal. "Oh, no. Well, there's one who lives here, as her family has since before the Normans came, I gather. But I do my best not to bother her too much. She's rather grumpy. No. I like to cook."  
  
"I…" Saliva was flooding Pansy's mouth rendering her effectively incapable of speech.  
  
"Well," Luna said, stowing her wand behind her ear and sliding into one exquisite Chippendale chair, "I'm hungry. Let's eat."  
  
  
***  
  
  
Pansy didn't need to be asked twice. She slid into the other chair, placing a creamy linen napkin in her lap, lifting the heavy silver spoon from its position in a shaking hand and dipping it away from her into the creamy, pale green soup. The scent of the soup nearly overcame Pansy, and as she tasted the first spoonful the flavor was so rich and redolent of the life that she had lost that she found that she could not swallow. She sat, eyes welling, staring at the lunatic baggage at the other end of the table who was happily slurping away.  
  
After a few seconds, Luna looked up. "Is the soup not good?"  
  
Through an act of will, Pansy swallowed and said, "It's excellent."  
  
"Oh, good," Luna murmured, and returned to attacking her bowl.  
  
Pansy ate, savoring each taste. She had not eaten… Twelve years. More. Since before Draco's father was arrested after that fiasco at the Ministry, the Easter that she and her mother had spent at on the Malfoy's Wiltshire estate. Meals and meals and meals and music and meals and Draco floating in midair outside of her window like bloody Aladdin. So pleased with himself. Meals. The subtle interplay of flavors, the aroma, the interplay of the celadon soup and the burgundy-colored tablecloth—everything about the dinner brought her back, and she wasn't sure _why._ Luna levitated a bottle of wine and filled the crystal goblet above Pansy's fork—an excellent, crisp white Bordeaux, just perfect.  
  
As much of an act of will as it had been for Pansy to swallow the first spoonful, it was now just as difficult to keep herself from inhaling the whole bowl. She had been living on conjured meals and pizza for far too long and found herself so aware of her own hunger—both the literal hunger that had left her scrawny and the more spiritual hunger for the better things that had disappeared from her life, that had left her feeling as dry and barren on the inside as she looked on the outside—that she was forced to put down the spoon between tastes in order to maintain any kind of self-discipline.  
  
As she savored each spoonful, emptying the bowl as slowly as she could, an odd feeling of déja-vu began to sweep over her. At first she could not understand it; she had certainly never been in this odd, overstuffed flat before, had never shared a meal with this notoriously odd woman. And yet as her spoon began to drain away the last of the potage, an image slowly began to resolve itself, a familiar image appearing as if from behind a fog bank: a crest bearing a rampant green dragon over a motto: _Ma Foy Est Ma Puissance_. Eyes wide, Pansy glanced at the elaborate uncial _M_ stamped into the handle of the silver spoon; it slipped from her fingers.  
  
Bloody hell.  
  
" _Where_ did you get this?"  
  
Luna cocked her head. "I told you—I cooked it earlier today. The sorrel I bought at a market—"  
  
" _No_." Hands trembling, Pansy lifted the Malfoy bone china. The Malfoy silver. "Where did you get _this_?"  
  
Luna blinked, something that she did so infrequently that even in her agitated state, Pansy was shocked. "Well, it's mine."  
  
"Yours?"  
  
"Well, who else would it have been left to?" Lovegood seemed so honestly perplexed that Pansy felt a hysterical giggle beginning to bubble up. "I suppose I could have given all of the family silver and such away—I hardly ever use it, and there's ever so much—and the house… Well, I've hardly been back, it's rather a sad place. But I did rather love this flat, and so when I was named the heir—"  
  
" _You_ were the Malfoys' heir!" Pansy couldn't believe it. All of this—all of the things that she had thought would some day be her own—had passed…?  
  
"Well, my mother was born a Malfoy, not that either she or my uncle ever particularly cared to acknowledge the fact." Luna's face became very somber; she looked at Pansy with something that almost seemed like a kind of understanding. "And when they all died… My uncle Lucius hadn't foreseen the possibility of their _all_ dying, you see, and so the entire estate passed to me." Luna's brow twisted, communicating her utter bewilderment.  
  
"You… You and _Draco_? Were _cousins_?"  
  
"Well… yes," said Luna.  
  
"But…" Pansy was starting to feel that that laughter was boiling up, entirely outside of any control that she might exert, and as much as she wanted to howl with laughter, to laugh in Loony Lovegood's face at the absurdity of the idea that _she_ was a Malfoy when Pansy, who had been bred to the job, was not, she found that she couldn't. She did not want to leave. She did not want to miss the rest of the meal. Lovegood… Her parents. Yes, she wanted to ask about her parents.  
  
Luna was looking down the table at Pansy, a vague smile on her lips. "Would you like some salad?"  
  
"Why not?" Pansy sighed.  
  
Luna flicked her wand, Vanishing the soup bowls and causing a beautifully arranged salad of fresh greens to appear.  
  
Pansy dove into the salad utterly shamelessly: a really first-rate salad can't be charmed into existence nor found at a London Pizza Hut. After two bites, however, she stopped and peered incredulously down at the dark red-striped leaves amid the romaine and frisé on the end of her fork. "Are those… Tentacula leaves?"  
  
"Yes, baby ones. Neville was the one who taught me that if you pick them before the stems start to harden, they're quite delicious. Also wonderful for sharpening the senses, which is a rather nice thing for a salad to do, don't you think?" The smile broadened in a way that made Pansy…  
  
"And they're safe?"  
  
"Oh, yes. I've never died yet." Now the smile was almost blinding. "And if we do, we'd do it together." She lifted a fork and toasted Pansy. " _Morituri te salutamus_!" And with that charming toast, she began to crunch happily away.  
  
Pansy ate the salad—really, the bloody thing was delicious, though whoever the idiot was that first _tried_ baby Tentacula leaves really had no business muddying the wizarding gene pool.  
  
Not that Pansy was going to be muddying the gene pool herself any time soon.  
  
As the meal progressed, Pansy began to slosh down more and more white wine. In part it was out of sheer gustatory pleasure, and in part she was getting nervous. Lovegood's misty eyes never seemed to blink, and never seemed to leave Pansy's face. The raven hopped onto the back of Pansy's chair and began saying " _Nevermore! Nevermore!_ " to Luna's great amusement.  
  
The main dish was Lobster _Neuberg_ , and Pansy began to get a very cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. This was her favorite dish, bar none, and it was exquisitely prepared. The last time Pansy had been served the rich entrée had been during those Easter holidays of her fifth year, the year that she and Draco had been on the Inquisitorial Squad together, and everything had seemed so lovely.  
  
That had been the night that she had finally let Draco sleep with her. He had flown up to the room that she always stayed in when her family visited the manor, gliding up on his bloody Nimbus like a character from one of her mother's ridiculous romance novels, and Pansy had let him in and…  
  
The sex had not been much, but that summer, even with Lucius in Azkaban and Draco skulking off constantly, Pansy had felt as if the life that she had been born to lead was finally starting, that the constant humiliation of Potter, Potter, Potter was finally at an end. She had let Draco have her four times and by the time they rode back on the Hogwarts Express, that sleek, blond head in her lap, it all had seemed perfect.  
  
But then Draco had become more and more distracted and distant as the year had gone on, and finally had had no time for her, and Penthesilea Parkinson had felt her life slipping away, and once again the world was all about Potter.  
  
And she hadn't had any more Lobster _Neuberg_.  
  
And eating it again was sex and love and hope and things that Pansy had not thought about in years, and eating it with Luna Lovegood at the other end of the table left Pansy wanting to vomit.  
  
"I have a surprise for you for dessert," Luna said, and with a flick caused a dark vision to appear: a chocolate torte so rich, so black that it seemed to suck the light out of the air, and Pansy _knew_ then. She knew what Lovegood was up to, she was sure of it, because that had been her favorite pudding; the Malfoys had always made a point of serving it when the Parkinsons visited, and it had been the dessert that night that Draco had finally insinuated himself between Pansy's legs.  
  
Luna Lovegood was a Malfoy after all.  
  
"Is something wrong?" Luna sidled over and knelt beside Pansy's chair and the scent of the wine and chocolate on her breath, the freesias on the table, the…  
  
Merlin. Amortentia.  
  
"I meant it as a surprise," the misty voice murmured. "I didn't mean to upset you. I thought it was your favorite."  
  
" _IT IS!_ " howled Pansy. A hand touched her cheek, and she shrank back, even as she wanted to melt into the brush of skin against her skin. She batted at her eyes with the thick napkin and scowled with as much hauteur as she could manage. "Look, Lovegood, I don't _do_ women."  
  
There was a long silence. Luna neither withdrew nor advanced nor seemed to respond in any way. Finally, she cocked her head and spoke. "I wasn't _planning_ on seducing you, you know."  
  
Pansy let out a wretched laugh, and even in the moment she couldn't have said whether it was a laugh of derision or despair.  
  
"Would you like me to seduce you, Penthesilea?" Luna's hands rested on Pansy's forearms, very lightly—almost negligently.  
  
Now it was Pansy's turn to fall silent, struck dumb. She could not think how to answer that question. How to… " _What happened to my parents, Lovegood?_ " she cried.  
  
"Oh," Luna said, apparently only slightly nonplussed, "that _was_ in fact part of what I wanted to talk to you about tonight."  
  
"It… What?"  
  
Luna's face was open and warm, the eyes blue and wide, which struck Pansy as quite terrifying in that moment. "I've discovered something about your parents, you see, and I've been trying to think of some way of telling you this. I'd hoped you would join me for dinner tonight, though I thought perhaps you might have plans on your birthday." Wordlessly, she conjured a small box—a wand case—and handed it to Pansy.  
  
" _Happy birthday!_ " croaked the raven.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Hands shaking, Pansy opened the box. Inside she found precisely what she knew she would: two wands—one oak, ten and a half inches, with a phoenix feather core of which her father had been inordinately proud; the other yew, ten inches, with a unicorn hair. Pansy remembered the whippiness of her mother's wand well, remembered her mother's facility with charms and remembered the sting of that wand across her bum when she had transgressed as a child. "Where… Where did you…?"  
  
Luna smiled again, and the smile, the eyes were so knowing and empathetic that they made Pansy want to spit in them. "At the manor. I hadn't been back there in quite some time—since the Ministry's investigations wrapped up ten years back or so. It is not a place I take pleasure in owning."  
  
Staring down at her parents' wands, Pansy moaned, "You've let the most exquisite manor house in Wizarding Britain fall into ruin?"  
  
"Oh, no, you mustn't think that, it is very well maintained—though much damage was done that night, twelve years ago."  
  
Pansy paled, but could not think to ask the obvious questions.  
  
Cocking her head again, Luna continued. "There are house elves bound to the manor—my friend Dobby's siblings, as it happens. They take great pride in keeping the house presentable. It was they, of course, who told me what your favorite meals would have been. They remembered perfectly."  
  
"Oh. Of course." Pansy felt an odd sense of mortification coursing through her—it had never occurred to her that there were house elves at Malfoy Manor, though it was obvious in retrospect. Pansy hated the fact that Granger's bloody campaign for Elf welfare, the bloody Potter-Weasley Foundation for Inter-Being Cooperation, all of that bloody rot, had insinuated itself even into Pansy herself, so that she felt shame— _shame_ —at having been served by the Malfoys' slaves for years, so that they knew her favorite dishes, had known how to wash her clothes just so and had cleaned the blood-stained linen, and yet she hadn't even acknowledged their existence. Hell, she hated this age—the hypocrisy of pretending that you were somehow supposed to _care_. She grumbled, "I'm surprised you didn't free the little buggers."  
  
"I did offer," Luna said, face brightening. "Two of the four that lived there then took me up on it, but stayed on for wages. There are now several babies, who are quite adorable." When she noticed Pansy's scowl— _adorable_ Elves?—Luna went on. "Which is none of it to the point. The point is… these wands were found…" Luna looked up into Pansy's face. "How badly do you want to know what happened to your parents, Penthesilea?"  
  
"How badly do you think?" Pansy snapped.  
  
Nodding, Luna said, "I thought so. My parents died, you know. When I was nine years old, I watched as my mother was killed by an experimental counter-curse—no one has ever been able to explain what went wrong—and my father disappeared a week before the end of the war—he's never been seen since. So I understand how hard it can be to wonder." Again, that insufferably empathetic look washed across Luna's face.  
  
"Yes. I want to know." Pansy could not let her temper get the better of her. Luna wanted to say something. And… And the smell of her. Wine and chocolate. Freesia and linen. Pansy cringed.  
  
"Are you willing to take an Unbreakable Vow?"  
  
"I…" She had been there when Professor Snape had been torn between his Life Debt to Harry Bloody Potter and his Unbreakable Vow to Draco's mother; there at Pansy's house where she had kept them hidden, had tried to broker a deal with the Side of Bloody Light, Draco had tried to kill Potter while his back was turned—bloody git—and the professor had been compelled to slay his supposed protégé. Pansy—and Harry—had watched as black flame consumed Severus Snape from the inside. As devastated as she had been by her mentor's betrayal of her betrothed, she could not have wished him such an end. It was not a bond in which to enter lightly. The wands trembled in the box on Pansy's lap. "I… Yes. But," she hissed as Luna took out her ashwood wand, "you have to tell me what it is I'm supposed to be agreeing to."  
  
"What a sensible precaution," said Luna. "I'm going to ask you to promise that you will not speak of what I am about to tell you about the events of October 31, 1998 without my permission, even under the Imperius Curse, Veritaserum or other compulsion, to anyone other than myself, unless that person is able to give you the correct countersign."  
  
"Countersign?" Bloody cloak and dagger nonsense.  
  
"Yes—if I were to die, someone else in the know would be able to release you from the Vow."  
  
Really, this evening's constant bouncing back and forth from giddiness to cold dread was becoming a bit much. Especially after such a lovely meal. "Fine. And the countersign?"  
  
"'Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve,'" Luna said, very seriously, so that Pansy giggled in spite of herself. "Well, that _is_ the countersign."  
  
"What a Gryffindor bloody password," Pansy snorted.  
  
Luna frowned. "It is, rather, isn't it?"  
  
Pansy laughed again—she didn't feel as if she'd laughed in years, which, come to think of it, she probably hadn't—until her host took her by the hand, stilling Pansy immediately.  
  
She took the vow, felt the flame circle her hand and go in, heating without quite burning, felt Luna's palm moist against her own. As she agreed to the last codicil—the bit about the ridiculous countersign—the last bit of flame bound their hands together. Luna started to withdraw, but Pansy held her tight. " _What happened that night_?"  
  
Grim, Luna began, "Your parents—"  
  
"No! Not just my parents. What's the enormous bloody secret? Aside from those who were there, does anyone know what happened?" Pansy's pulse should have been racing but it wasn't. She felt, suddenly, as if everything was as it should be again. She gripped Lovegood's surprisingly warm hand tight.  
  
Luna shrugged. "The minister. Perhaps a few others. All are bound by the same Vow that you now are."  
  
Pansy nodded. "So… I want to know about my parents, I need to… But I need to know what it is that you've been hiding all of this time."  
  
Luna's pale brows contracted; her forehead was so smooth that the skin didn't seem to know where to crease. "All right. Do you know anything aside from the official reports?"  
  
"Of course not," Pansy said dismissively. "Of course, there are rumors…"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
Pansy found herself whispering, which felt silly, but which she could not stop herself from doing. "Rumors that the magic that Potter used to kill them all was Dark Magic—that Dumbledore taught him spells that even the Dark Lord hadn't been willing to attempt."  
  
Sighing, Luna shook her head. "No, Harry performed an act of great magic that night, but it was not Dark. The secret, you see, is that Harry did not kill Voldemort and the Death Eaters at all."  
  
" _WHAT?_ "  
  
"Really," Luna said, "your cheeks sprout the most lovely cherry-red circles when you're excited." Pansy grumbled, even as she felt those circles grow. As if she had almost forgotten the topic of their conversation, Luna looked up toward the ceiling and then again at Pansy. Finally, she continued, "Yes. Pantheselia, do you know what Horcruxes are?"  
  
Pansy shook her head. She thought she had heard Professor Snape muttering the word to Draco once, during their days of hiding down in Pansy's basement.  
  
"Oh, good," Luna said. "They are quite awful things. I would be sorry to know that you were aware of them. A Dark witch or wizard commits a murder, sundering their soul; they use a ritual to place one of the sundered bits into a magical container; until that container is destroyed, they are essentially immortal."  
  
Comprehension dawned. "That's why the Dark… Voldemort didn't die when the spell backfired on him that first time!"  
  
"Yes," said Luna. "Now, creating even one Horcrux is a grotesquely evil act. Voldemort did something unprecedented: he created six—so that his soul, which should have been irreducible, was scattered into seven parts. The night that he killed Harry's parents, he was going to create his fifth." Now it was Luna who was whispering. "The thing, you see, is that he was obsessed with the Founders. He had placed bits of his soul in objects owned by Salazar Slytherin, his forebear, and by Helga Hufflepuff. Then he discovered that not only was Harry Potter the prophesied Chosen One who could vanquish him, but he was a descendant of both Godric Gryffindor and of Rowena Ravenclaw."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Not so surprising, when you consider that they were married. Hundreds of wizards and witches can trace their lineage back to them. In any case, his plan was to kill Harry and use his skull as his fifth Horcrux. He had prepared Harry as a vessel already, but when Voldemort attempted to kill him…"  
  
"The Killing Curse backfired." Oh, Merlin.  
  
"Yes. Harry's mother had died for him, protecting him in ways that Voldemort had not foreseen. Yet that bit of Voldemort _was_ put into Harry—or rather, into his scar."  
  
"His...? Oh!" Suddenly, all sorts of things made sense—the rumors that Potter had had visions of Voldemort's activities, the rumors that they had been linked: they had.  
  
"Voldemort became aware of this eventually, but Harry was not until very late. I was the one who thought to cast the spell that revealed the truth, and I've always regretted it. He believed then, you see, that he would have to die for Voldemort to be defeated."  
  
"But… I mean, how do you get rid of a Horcrux? Surely you can just get rid of what's inside?"  
  
"So we thought. But no—as far as we were ever able to ascertain, the only way to unmake a Horcrux is to destroy the vessel." Luna's eyes were Stunner sharp now, and her voice was low but emphatic.  
  
"Then how…?"  
  
Luna bit her lip, came to some decision, and continued. "That night, we had planned to try to give Harry the chance to kill Voldemort—to test the theory. We did not believe that Voldemort would try to kill Harry, endangering his own safety." She shook her head—in disagreement, or for clarity? "We had not realized that Harry, Hermione and Ronald had done their work too well. Voldemort was unaware that they had destroyed all of the other Horcruxes, and so he felt that he could spare one—Harry. When we attacked the manor, he used his remaining Death Eaters—there were only a dozen left by that point."  
  
"I know," Pansy growled.  
  
"Yes. Well, he used them very recklessly. He had them attack everyone in the house—and there were perhaps eighty of us—while he focused solely on Harry, whom he believed to be the only person who could vanquish him."  
  
"Then my parents—"  
  
"No, no, I will tell you in a moment, but I must finish this story first." Luna's face looked calm again, but her eyes were still ferocious. "The Death Eaters fought as if their lives depended on it—which indeed they did. He had tired of them. He planned on killing Harry, and then possessing as many of those of us who were fighting him as he could keep alive, so that the Order of the Phoenix would be his new army—an army that no one would ever suspect or anticipate." She took a long breath. "Penthesilea, you must understand, what happened next makes no sense, and yet it happened. Peter Pettigrew, Voldemort's servant, the one who had betrayed the Potters, attempted to flee—he was a rat Animagus—and Voldemort saw him. He threw a killing curse at him, but Harry… Harry stepped into its path."  
  
"WHAT?" Pansy shouted, trying but failing to shake her hand free from Luna's. "Oh, come on, Lovegood, that's not—"  
  
"I tell you, it's what happened. I saw it with my own eyes. The green light struck Harry. Harry _died_."  
  
Bloody hell. "But…"  
  
"And then something remarkable happened: as Harry hit the floor, a bright flame engulfed his body, and then flew towards the now-mortal Voldemort. He himself had loosed the spell that destroyed him. From him, the flame dispersed to each of his followers. They were incinerated within seconds."  
  
"Then my parents?—"  
  
Luna shook her head. "I will tell you about your parents in a moment. At the time, once we saw that Voldemort and the Death Eaters had been destroyed, we were more concerned about Harry—we had seen him die, and yet we could not believe it. Where he fell there was a pile of ashes. Ginny rushed to it and found…"  
  
Pansy was sure she did not wish to know what she had found.  
  
"She found a baby. A green-eyed baby boy aged approximately fifteen months. It was Harry."  
  
"But…"  
  
"Have you ever seen a Phoenix on its burning day, Penthesilea?" When Pansy shook her head, Luna laughed—not the manic, shocking laugh from the beginning of the meal, but a soft, warm chuckle. She leaned forward against Pansy's knees, gazing upward. "It is an amazing sight. They go up in flame, and then, from the ashes, they are reborn. They grow to full maturity again within a few days."  
  
Bloody… No wonder no one wanted this story going around. If people knew, Potter wouldn't be a bloody _hero_ , he'd be a bloody _messiah_.  
  
Luna smiled broadly, and for the first time that night the smile did not disturb Pansy's equilibrium—there wasn't much left to disturb. "He recovered fully within seventy-two hours. He was as good as new—better, since he was no longer a vessel for a piece of Voldemort's splintered soul. We all decided to keep the actual events of that night a secret for his sake, but he pointed out that, if we swore ourselves to silence, the knowledge of how Voldemort had attempted to escape mortality would never again tempt a would-be successor."  
  
"That makes sense." They sat motionless for a moment. It felt odd having Luna Lovegood pressed up against her shins, those moonglobe eyes, her smell… Pansy had not shared _secrets_ like this in years. Decades. Her interactions—even her last few and long-ago liaisons—were utterly anonymous, as generic as the so-called restaurant over which she lived.  
  
She had a sudden memory of whispering forehead to forehead with Daphne, nestled together in Daphne's bed after curfew. Was Harry Potter Slytherin's Heir? Was Professor Snape? Pansy remembered dreaming as only a romantic thirteen-year-old can dream that it might be Draco. Idiot. It was never Draco.  
  
Draco, who should have been named after his bloody mother. What had Pansy been bloody thinking?  
  
Well, that was easy—she'd been thinking how nice that incredibly fine blond hair looked in her lap. She'd been thinking about the money. About the house. About the House.  
  
Loony Lovegood, whose surprisingly substantial breasts were pressing against Pansy's knees.  
  
Her parents. "The wands?" she sputtered.  
  
Luna nodded, as if Pansy's sudden non sequitur had been the answer to whatever daft question was bouncing around inside of that incalculable head of hers. Taking Pansy's father's wand up and holding it tip to tip with her own, she recited an incantation that had been the nightmare of many of her friends at school: " _Priori incantatem._ "  
  
A ghostly, green shape emerged from the end of Decius Parkinson's wand: Felicia Parkinson.  
  
Pansy almost gagged. _"What?_ "  
  
"Yes, hers is the same. Or rather," Luna murmured thoughtfully, "her Killing Curse hit your father."  
  
Pansy pushed back in her chair. She tried to stand but her legs were too weak. " _You_ … You brought me here to tell me _that_?"  
  
Luna placed her own wand behind her ear and then landed the moth-soft hand calmly on Pansy's cheek. Her eyes were sad and unfocused, but she spoke with mesmeric intensity. "Penthesilea. Listen to me. Your parents were the only Death Eaters found who hadn't been incinerated—we assumed that that meant that they died before Voldemort's downfall. They were found in a small chamber far from the battle—none of the DA or Order members remembered seeing them, and certainly none of them fought with your parents. They were discovered well after the battle, unscarred, faces blank. The truly fascinating thing is that…" Luna pursed her lips. "Your mother's wand hand was her left, am I correct?"  
  
"Yes," Pansy muttered, "but what—?"  
  
"And your father used his right hand?"  
  
"Yes. What the hell—?"  
  
Holding the oak wand up, Luna examined it. "They were holding hands. Non-wand hands." The dark wand twirled in her long, pale fingers.  
  
"You…" Pansy considered this—all of it. It was so much, _too_ much. But eventually she saw the pattern that Lovegood wanted her to see. "You think they committed suicide."  
  
"I think that's the only answer." The sad look deepened in her eyes, even as that batty smile broadened. "Their wands were not found at the time, which is part of the reason that we've never released this information. There was a mystery, you see, and given how many mysteries were already piling up around that day's occurrences, it seemed unwise to presume."  
  
Pansy picked up her mother's wand, felt the smooth, springy action, had a sudden image of her mother Conjuring buckets of flowers for Pansy's tenth birthday party. "Huh."  
  
Luna's thumb passed along the top of Pansy's cheek; it came up moist. Blast. The daft bint sighed. "Cobby came to me last week—he's the head Elf at the manor. He said that his mate had found these wands beneath a chair and a cupboard. Based on his description of where they were found and the records of your mother and father's positions, I must assume that the wands had been blown out of your parents' hands when they cast the spell."  
  
Pansy felt tears flowing and hated them—hated that they wouldn't stop, hated that Luna Bloody Lovegood had seen them, that Luna had _caused_ them. And that she continued to try to ease them in so… _awful_ a manner. Failing to speak, Pansy looked away, hoping Luna would stop, but of course the bitch didn't.  
  
Instead, she pressed closer, dropping Decius' wand back into the box and beginning to stroke the _other_ side of Pansy's face, and Pansy couldn't find it in herself to stop her. "I think that they knew that they were going to die, you see," the airy voice continued, so soft and low, but so bloody painful. "I think that they knew that Voldemort was going to use them as wand fodder, and that one way or another they would not survive. And so they chose to kill themselves rather than help him any further."  
  
Distraught as she was— _distraught_ , just the bloody word—Pansy thought that this action would have fit her parents. "Spiteful and proud to the last," she spluttered.  
  
"Hmm," Luna answered. She stood, not releasing Pansy's face from her gentle grip. "I am sorry that we could not tell you earlier, Penthesilea. I can only imagine how hard it has been for you not know."  
  
Pansy stared up past the surprising bosom, wanting to spit in the vapid face. _You can't imagine a bloody thing!_ she wanted to scream. _They were my_ ** _bloody_** _parents and they didn't love me enough to…  
  
_Luna's expression remained open and beatific and Pansy suddenly realized that she _did_ know—that her parents had left _her_ behind, and that that was why she had wanted Pansy to know, and the tears began to pour out, as if she were two and not thirty. Thirty-one. The tears poured out, and a sound erupted from Pansy's throat that a part of her mind categorized as keening, which was fascinating, since it was a sound Pansy was quite certain she had never emitted before.  
  
As she considered it—as her body abandoned her to grief, or whatever the hell it was—Pansy knew that Luna was correct. Her parents would have been furious with their so-called lord, furious with the Malfoys, and would have been too proud to allow themselves to be used as pawns in what they must have seen was a losing battle, and so they had done what Parkinsons had always done: they had turned to their own.  
  
Pansy had no one of her own. She was alone, and had never felt it so much as at that moment, sniveling and wailing against Luna Lovegood's round belly.  
  
The thing that almost sent Pansy over the edge from grief to utter silliness was the knowledge that there couldn't have been anything romantic about the act: it wasn't a lovers' pact or anything ridiculous like that. Her parents had quietly loathed one another, had fought epic battles through their only daughter; even so, no one was worthy to draw a wand on a Parkinson but another Parkinson.  
  
Who would do the same for Pansy?  
  
Even the small island of clarity in her mind was swamped after that.  
  
  
***  
  
  
When she finally cried herself out some time later, her throat felt bruised and her eyes swollen. The midnight blue velvet of Luna's Unspeakable robes was wet, but was so dark to begin with that it didn't show the moisture, which was some sort of blessing, Pansy supposed. Pansy felt Luna's insubstantial hand stroking through Pansy's short hair. "There's one other thing about the wands, Penthesilea," Luna said.  
  
For some reason, that caused laughter to spew out of Pansy's raw throat. "Merlin, Lovegood! You don't bloody know when to _quit!_ "  
  
Her fingers continuing to dance along the back of Pansy's scalp, Luna said, "This a good thing, I promise."  
  
Pansy rested her forehead against Luna's belly again. "Oh, fine. Get it over with."  
  
"I brought these wands to some friends in the Ministry. We used _Priori incantatem_ to search back as far as we could go—hundreds of spells. We didn't find another Killing Curse in either wand."  
  
Pansy shook her head; it felt as if it were full of cotton—the ridiculous Haitian kind, that stained immediately and even Elves couldn't get clean. "What?" She'd been saying that an awful lot during the evening. Idiot.  
  
"We couldn't find any evidence of either of your parents ever casting the _Avada Kedavra_ Curse on anyone, wizard, witch or Muggle. Oh, we found the Imperius and even—once, on your mother's—the Cruciatus. But we were able to prove to the Ministry's satisfaction that your parents may have followed Voldemort, but they were not murderers." The soft fingers passed over Pansy's forehead and the feeling was _so_ … "The MLES will be releasing a statement to that effect during the Victory Day celebrations tomorrow. I wanted you to know."  
  
"I…" Another emotion overwhelmed Pansy, an emotion so foreign that she couldn't even begin to give it a name. It certainly had nothing to do with what Pansy knew of desire or love or even gratitude, and so no one could have been more surprised than Pansy herself when she grabbed Luna's placid face, pulled it down to her own, and kissed it.  
  
Luna did not seem at all surprised. She returned the kiss, waiting until Pansy herself broke it. As Pansy panted and stammered, Luna peered up equanimously. "I thought you might want me to. But perhaps we should finish our dessert first. You seem a bit confuddled." After placing another light kiss on Pansy's lips, she stood, Levitated the wands to the table beside the extraordinary chocolate torte, and returned to her end of the table, where she flopped back into her chair, looking again like a straw-headed rag doll, not the powerful, present woman who had just overwhelmed Pansy's senses.  
  
When a shake of her head failed to clear it, she stared down at the torte. She had kissed Luna Lovegood.  
  
Merlin.  
  
Hand trembling, Pansy picked up her dessert fork, sliced off the tip, dipped it in the raspberry _compôt_ and took a bite.  
  
Exquisite. Astonishing. Sex.  
  
She looked back up the table, and Luna was grinning at her, Cheshire-cat-like, nothing rag-dollish at all, and Pansy's middle turned to goo. The Malfoy. "Lovegood. Luna. I… I don't do…"  
  
"So you said, but I don't believe you, I'm afraid. That was one of the nicer kisses I've had in a while, and I would be very sad if we didn't get the opportunity again. However," she said, "they are your lips. Isn't the torte lovely?"  
  
Pansy gave what was meant to be a grunt of assent, but came out as more of a moan of longing—absolutely not the sound that Pansy Parkinson desired to be making to Luna Lovegood at the moment. "I… You… Do you like girls and boys, too?" she stammered, though she'd meant to continue talking about the torte. She crammed another forkful in, in part for the pleasure and in part to keep her mouth occupied.  
  
Her head at an odd angle, Luna answered, "Well, I have been with a man and a woman at the same time, if that's what you mean." When Pansy blinked, speechless, another bite of torte poised at her lips, Luna went on. "I've never been much concerned with the gender of my lovers. It's the person that intrigues me. I've always thought _you_ were quite intriguing, for example, though before tonight I had no idea how much so."  
  
This response filled Pansy with a combination of pleasure, shame and anger. " _Intriguing_?" she snapped. Her free hand began working at her robes. " _No one_ finds _me_ intriguing. I'm a horrid, bitter, dried-up old _bitch_."  
  
"Penthesilea!" Luna said in tones of all-but-motherly outrage. "No one should be allowed to say such things about you, least of all you yourself! There is nothing _dry_ about you at all—I've scarcely had an opportunity to find out, but I can still attest to that. Nor are you horrid, and—since I do not believe that you are an Animagus or a werewolf—I assume that by _bitch_ you meant 'an unpleasant woman with a tart tongue,' a pejorative that I've really never had any time for. As for bitter…" Luna was floating back down the table again, and Pansy's heart began trying to eject itself through her esophagus. The blonde scooped up a forkful of the torte from Pansy's plate and tasted it. "This is bitter, but that does not stop it from being altogether wonderful." She offered the rest of the forkful to Pansy who accepted it.  
  
It was the sexiest thing that anyone had done to Pansy since… Bugger. Blast. Merlin. Since _ever_. What was so bloody sexy about having a piece of torte shoved in one's mouth? "Luna…"  
  
Luna's mouth replaced the fork, her tongue replaced the tines in Pansy's mouth. The tongue sought out Pansy's own, and an electric feeling shot straight from that junction point to the center of Pansy's growing arousal.  
  
Pansy found herself squealing into Luna's mouth. She dropped her fork… somewhere, her hands fluttering uncertainly above her own shoulders.  
  
"Hmmmm," Luna murmured, her mouth still against Pansy's. A hand slid up the front of Pansy's robes, sending sparks of pleasure up her breastless chest. "You don't have to do this, you know. I don't want to make you." The fastening at the top of Pansy's robes melted away. "However, I get the impression that you want me to make you."  
  
"Oh…"  
  
Luna's fingers slowly revealed Pansy's collarbones, tracing them. Chocolate, raspberry, wine. Linen. Freesia. Luna's lips continued to move against Pansy's. "Would it help if you thought of me as the Malfoy heir, rather than the younger girl you used to make fun of at school?"  
  
Whimpering, Pansy gave in. Her hands dropped to Luna's shoulders as Luna's fingers slowly found their way to first one and then both aching nipples. "Oh! Merlin… Luna… I don't…"  
  
"Shhh," Luna said, kissing her way along Pansy's chin and down her throat. "I'm not."  
  
Pansy was certain that she didn't have the slightest clue what the hell Luna meant, but she decided at that moment that she didn't care. She didn't care that this was an incredibly odd way to spend her birthday. She didn't care that a woman—an odd woman that Pansy had never considered as anything but a joke—was undressing her, was slowly bringing to life nerve endings that Pansy had forgotten that she ever had. Well, she did care about that. Her body was rather insistent in caring about that.  
  
Her parents. What a thoroughly peculiar way to celebrate their memory. And yet… And yet here she was, giving herself to the heir of the Malfoys, just as she had been raised to do from a very, very young age.  
  
"How could you call yourself dry?" Luna murmured, rapt in apparent admiration as she Banished Pansy's knickers. Luna's lips, her tongue, her amazing, scintillating fingers began to draw an altogether new feeling out of Pansy, and she found herself writhing on her back, lying on a five-hundred-year-old carpet that had probably flown here under its own power, that felt as if it were flying beneath her now, found herself flowing and opening in a way…  
  
She had never reacted this way before, had never had a lover who… Not Draco, certainly, nor Smith, nor pimply Bowers, nor any of them—never had any of them drawn a feeling like this out of Pansy and before long she was howling "Merlin! Merlin! Merlin!" at the age-black ceiling and Pansy was so sad that it was almost over but how could she be sad because it felt _so good_ but Luna did not stop she continued and Pansy wailed tears flowing again like stars an ecstasy of _presence_ and Pansy came and came and all dividing lines between _now_ and _then_ and _her_ and _me_ faded as Pansy. _Came_.  
  
Arrived.  
  
She arrived.  
  
She found herself wrapped around Luna Lovegood, holding the other woman as she had not held anyone since she was a little girl, before her mother had started to push her away, to tell her to act like a _witch_ , not a baby. Luna was holding her, rocking her. Pansy found herself kissing her, found herself caressing and stroking and _making love_ to Luna Lovegood.  
  
"You don't have to," Luna hissed.  
  
"No, I don't," Pansy said. But she did anyway.  
  
Some long time later, when Luna had given her back things that Pansy had not even known to miss, they lay curled on the carpet. Luna had conjured a floating jack o' lantern that cast a warm, dreamlike glow over their pale bodies. The grate roared with flame, and Pansy felt alive.  
  
" _Trick or treat!_ " cawed the raven.  
  
Pansy laughed. Laughed so hard that the bloody bird decamped back to the bedroom screeching " _Trick or treat! Happy birthday! Trick or treat! Happy birthday!"  
  
_Pansy howled, and Luna laughed with her.


End file.
